July Birthstone

July Birthstone – Ruby

Birthstones have been commonly used to personalize jewelry and mark the month the wearer was born. In 1912, the American National Association of Jewelers came up with a standardized list of birthstones and their months. This list shows the birthstone of July as the ruby. This is what we call the "modern" list of birthstones. Prior to this, other birthstones were associated with the birth month and July has also been linked to the stone carnelian.

July is the seventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and was renamed for Julius Caesar. Because of its origin, until the 18th century this month's name was pronounced the same way as the girl's name "Julie". It’s birthstone, the ruby is a beautiful red gem that is very hard – even harder than the diamond.

In birthstone jewelry, rubies are valued according to several characteristics including size, color, clarity and cut. All natural rubies have imperfections in them. On the other hand, artificial rubies may have no imperfections. When shopping for your July birthstone, the fewer the number and the less obvious the imperfections, the more valuable the ruby is—unless there are no imperfections (i.e. a "perfect" ruby)—then it is suspected of being artificially made and its status as a priceless gem is therefore not assured. Some manufactured rubies have dopants added to them so that they can be identified as artificial, but most require gemmological testing to determine their origin.

As with any jewelry, one should buy birthstone jewelry from a reputable jewelry. There are plenty of these online, or at your local mall. Buying birthstone jewelry for July can be a fun way to give a gift that has unique meaning to the recipient.

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